


never knowing where we're gonna wake up in the morning

by spock



Category: The Borgias (Showtime TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Dreams, M/M, Post-Season/Series 03, Supernatural Elements, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-03 18:03:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16330940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spock/pseuds/spock
Summary: Realityis the sum or aggregate of all that is real or existent, as opposed to that which is merely imaginary. In physical terms, reality is the totality of the universe, known and unknown.[1]Cesare wants to know what he's supposed to do with a reality he doesn't want. Fortunately for him, Micheletto has a solution to share.





	never knowing where we're gonna wake up in the morning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Arithanas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arithanas/gifts).



The days have been long, as of late.

The nights, even longer.

Micheletto’s horse is calm beneath him, steady over the terrain as if it knew these woods just as well as the man himself does. Off to his side, Cesare speaks without pause, preferring noise to silence. Micheletto has always been a rapt audience to his word, but the warmth of the afternoon sun, the cadence of Cesare's voice, and the fluid shift of his body atop the saddle seem to have conspired to put Micheletto place a daze.

Cesare continues speaking, though his mind drifts to focus entirely on Micheletto.

Micheletto’s eyes turn into slits before closing entirely, the edges of his shoulders curving in towards his chest. He is unguarded. Cesare toes his horse closer and realizes how true that assessment is when Micheletto doesn’t so much as stir at Cesare’s nearness.

He reaches up to ghost his hand across the skin of Micheletto’s neck. He has on gloves made of soft leather, a gift he had purchased for Micheletto and had seen rebuked for his trouble.

Affronted and confused, as this had taken place early in their acquaintance when he had not yet known Micheletto and his ways, Cesare demanded to know why his kindness was so distasteful. _I can’t be having my hands trapped,_ , Micheletto had said. _If you want to do me a favor, keep yours soft._

And so Cesare wore them himself.

Micheletto’s head snaps up at Cesare’s touch, eyes blinking owlishly.

"Tired, are we?" Cesare asks.

Micheletto allows himself to lean back for a moment, resting his weight into the palm of Cesare's hand still cupping his nape. "I slept little," he says.

Cesare laughs.

 

☾

 

Forli, Micheletto says, is as he remembers it. Frozen in time as it is, apparently he’s often wondered if anything has changed since the moment the town was settled.

It’s the most he’s gotten out of Micheletto since they left Rome. Cesare does so love when Micheletto forgets himself, if only for a moment, and opens up.

Cesare does his duty and maintains a steady stream of prattle to help pass the ride. It dies off as they reach first of the farms that line the outermost edge of the city's territory. From that point, they continue on in silence.

"Our accommodations," Micheletto begins to ask, after the silence begins to stretch. It is his way of showing that he is eager to get Cesare speaking again.

Cesare spurs his horse forward from where he has drifted behind Micheletto, and takes care to meet Micheletto's eyes. "Once more: yes." He laughs. "You still refuse to trust any plan not laid into action by your own hand?"

Micheletto hums.

"Not even mine?" Cesare presses. "Even after—"

"All this time that you and I have known one another?" Micheletto waves a hand at the scenery in front of them and Cesare wants to boot the man off his horse. Micheletto has so few words of his own, and it is infinitely annoying when he steals the ones from Cesare’s lips instead of coming up with his own.

Micheletto answers his own question, as it originated from Cesare, saying, "We are here, are we not?"

 

☾

 

They stop at his mother's first, Micheletto clearly eager to get this reunion out of the way.

"Bambino!"

It's as if he's all of five years old. The fuss. Even after all this time away, it seems that Micheletto is still used to it. To hear Micheletto tell it, his mother is the only one who has ever treated his existence with much fanfare.

Besides Cesare.

For his wont, Cesare's face betrays his eagerness in finding a peer for his admiration of Micheletto. Micheletto keeps Cesare's gaze over his mother's head as she holds him tightly to her for a long moment before pulling back. She cups his cheeks between the palms of her hands.

"Come, come," she says. "Sit. Eat! So much has changed while you were away."

Micheletto’s face betrays his disbelief and Cesare laughs.

His mother starts, her head turning, eyes taking in Cesare. He realizes that she had not noticed him before. It feels as if he might have not existed before this moment, for all that her attentions were drawn to Micheletto. Cesare can sympathize. From the moment he laid eyes on Micheletto, he has had neither will nor desire to attend to anyone else.

"Who is this?" His mother asks. "Your dottore?"

Cesare beams. "Is it so obvious?"

Micheletto eats, watching them idly as his mother drags Cesare to the table. She seats him with a plate just as overflowing as the one she's laid out for Micheletto. Their feet rest together beneath the table, and Cesare smiles at him across the rim of his cup.

"How long are you staying, then?" his mother asks.

"For good, mama."

She yells, bright and incoherent. Her arms wrap around Micheletto's head, his shoulders, gathering him up and pulling him into the soft middle of her body. He brings his hand up to place another shred of meat into his mouth, though it takes some effort worm his fingers past her grip. "Really!" she says. "And you could not write to say?"

Micheletto would not, even if he possessed the ability to write.

"Against my advice," Cesare says, eyes locked with Micheletto's, not straying for a moment. "But he insisted it be a surprise. A surprise for his mama."

"And what a blessed one indeed. I can fix up your room — "

"I will be taking my own house," Micheletto says. His tone leaves no room for argument. "It will be my practice." He brings his finger to his mouth and licks the grease from it, before directing it at Cesare. "He will join me. It is the final stage of my learning."

 

☾

 

Micheletto keeps a clean house; Cesare delights in collecting little opulences clutter it.

The patients that Micheletto sees to seem to appreciate Cesare's efforts, even if the man himself fails to comment on them entirely. They ask questions and make comments that Micheletto never bothers to reply to, focused on his examining, and never one for mindless small talk besides.

His examination room isn't finished yet, and so Micheletto only takes in those with minor ailments. Quick, easy mysteries that Micheletto might solve in his sleep. Ones that see him sending them away with poultices and verbal instruction before they have can properly settle and gather whatever gossip they're undoubtedly eager to snuff out.

There's a lull in the early afternoon.

Knowing this, when Cesare opens and steps through the door he does not bother to precede his arrival with a knock. Micheletto is cleaning his knives to pass the time and does not look surprised to see Cesare’s return. In fact, he does not look to Cesare at all, so focused in his task.

"I went to the blacksmith with your mother this morning," he says.

Micheletto huffs out a laugh, a quiet, ghost of a thing. "Far too soon for you to have soured on her already. I fear for your sanity."

Confusion unfurls across Cesare's face. Micheletto uses the scalpel in his hand to gesture at him, drawing a circle around his face in the air.

Cesare shakes his head. "A more dutiful mother, I could not imagine," he says. "No, she introduced me to Augustino."

"Ah," Micheletto says.

" _Ah_ indeed." Cesare pulls at the bag at his hip and starts placing things about the room. More opulences. "Never in my life have I met someone so rude."

"I was with him," Micheletto explains. "Before I left."

"No," Cesare says it in the same manner another might say _yes_. "That explains it then. How ever was I to guess?"

Cesare comes to a stop, the contents of his bag exhausted, save for the meal Micheletto’s mother has prepared for them, and one other item. "He is to wed some poor girl. Your mother looked far happier than he did when she asked him how that was developing."

Micheletto sets down the last of his knives and stretches out his legs where he sits at his stool, shifting to work the muscles in his back, the cords of them in his thighs. "Saint Paul says it is better to marry than to burn," he says.

Cesare has a particular appreciation for the times when Micheletto admits to knowing the scripture.

Micheletto knows this, and indulges Cesare with it when the moment is right and Micheletto himself is in the mood to do so.

"Is that we're doing, then? Burning?" Cesare makes quick work of the distance between them, coming to stand tall beside Micheletto's stool. Micheletto has to crane his head to meet Cesare's gaze.

"Give me your hand," Cesare says.

Micheletto does as he is told.

Cesare reaches back into his bag and pulls from it a ring. Micheletto watches Cesare as slides it onto his hand. The weight is heavy, Cesare knows, though he hopes Micheletto doesn't mind it. It should provide him more freedom than the gloves, at least.

"Are you married, then, Cesare Borgia?"

The smile that slides onto Cesare's face is cruel, but it is not for Micheletto. "A simple gift of friendly affection," he says. "All that talk of marriage reminded me, and he had some bands already there, ripe for the taking. You should have seen—"

Micheletto shakes his head. "I can imagine." Cesare plays with his hand, twisting the ring ‘round and ‘round Micheletto's finger.

Micheletto brings his free hand up and hooks it into the front of Cesare's pants, tugging at the laces. Cesare guides the other to join its brother in Cesare’s lap. The ring suits the color Micheletto’s skin, as Micheletto’s hand suits the coloring Cesare’s.

He buries his hands into Micheletto's hair, fingers digging lightly into Micheletto's scalp, pushing his head back until his neck is bared to Cesare's eyes. "Micheletto," he asks, "do you ever burn?"

 

☽

 

Cesare wakes.

This one had felt so real. It takes him a moment to come back to himself, to remember that he is no learned doctor, and Micheletto had not been his apprentice.

Micheletto had been a weapon. Cesare had wielded him, for a time, but that was over now.

It’s been happening more lately, his mind immersing him in dreams of a world that didn’t so conspire to keep Micheletto and he apart. Of one where Micheletto did not conspire so, at any rate.

This time had been particularly alluring, yet wrong all the same. He can recall the small details of it all, this soon after waking, and it frightens him. The dream had felt the span of months; he can recall every item he purchased for their home, each meal that Micheletto’s mother had supplied to them. His cock is still hard from the ghost of Micheletto’s touch. Cesare wishes he had not learned of Micheletto’s preferences, for it has ignited a particular sort of burn under the otherwise numb ache he feels at having lost his closest friend and confidant.

He has reached an impasse. The dreams, such as they are, are better than his reality. They tempt him, and he wonders if it might not just be better to stay within them.

This frightens him, and he wonders if it might not be better not to sleep at all.

Cesare rises and searches blindly in the dark for his shoes. He had arrived back to Rome the day before, exhausted and tired, returning from a mission for the Holy Father. Micheletto’s was still unoccupied, untouched from the moment the man had fled it, and so Cesare has used it to rest. He has seen more of Micheletto’s abandoned bed in the past few months than his own. It is strange, he thinks, that the first time he had come to see this place had only been after Micheletto had released his claim to it.

It brings doubt bubbling up within him. He knows how dearly he held Micheletto, but had Micheletto felt the same? How well had Cesare known him, truly?

It does him no good to allow his thoughts to linger on these things. If there’s one thing Cesare should hold true, it is that Micheletto had held little regard for the Lord himself, but he had certainly believed in Cesare Borgia. And Cesare had failed him, so here he was.

Somewhere, alive, if not well, is Micheletto. Cesare won’t allow himself to think anything but.

He takes the stairs two at a time and exits the door out onto the street. He had fallen asleep when the sun at been at its brightest, and he has awoken to the pitchest dark. The streets are as dead as they get, and Cesare keeps to the shadows as he crosses them. He walks, and walks, until he reaches the trees.

A howl cuts through the quiet of the night, sharp and bright, and Cesare follows it. It does not frighten him — wolves birthed this city. A silly and sentimental part of Cesare likes to think of a lone wolf that had been his, for a time.

As he walks, some of the wistfulness in Cesare sours. It hadn’t been as if he’d taken Micheletto for granted. Cesare had valued him, praised him, and had been more surprised than angry at the whole _boy_ fiasco, which had worked out fine in the end. Yet still Micheletto had fled.

When their reunion eventually came, because of this occurring Cesare would not allow himself to hold doubt, Cesare vowed to strike him across the face, foremost.

Then he would attend to other things.

The howl comes again, much closer this time. Cesare spins, surprised, but there are no glowing eyes to meet him. He looks around to see where his legs have carried him, and realizes he has returned to a clearing he has been in before.

The meat he had left out for the wolf prior to his departure is gone.

“You’re welcome!” Cesare calls out into the night. The wolf fails to howl back in reply.

 

☾

 

After a long day of seeing to his Father’s whims, Cesare returns, exhausted, to Micheletto’s. He cannot find a moment’s rest in his own bed, and has given up trying. It has been a handful of days since he last was able to return here, and Cesare thinks of nothing but a blissful escape into his dreams.

Why had he ever wanted to avoid them? Such sentiment is long lost and foreign to him now.

The door is open a crack when he reaches it. _Can nothing in this life come easy_ , Cesare thinks, and then pulls a blade from his robes. He takes care not to make a sound as he ascends the stairs, stepping over boards that creek until he reaches the loft.

There, illuminated by the moon, stands Micheletto.

He is naked and covered in mud.

“Micheletto,” Cesare breathes it, a benediction. “Where have you been?” He’s struck by a sense of déjà vu.

The man growls, low in his throat.

“Let this not be like our last reunion,” Cesare all but begs this. “You have not come to impart on me some wisdom before you disappear into the night again?”

Micheletto says nothing. He picks up a cloth from the floor, one he must have dropped when Cesare surprised him with his presence, and wipes the mud from his face, his hands. There is something otherworldly about him — though this is not the first time Cesare has thought this of him.

They stand there, staring at one another, as Micheletto cleans himself. Finished, he slowly makes his way over to Cesare. Cesare, eyebrows rising, keeps his gaze fixed between Micheletto’s thighs as he walks. It is too late in the night for Cesare to pretend he has ever possessed shame.

When Micheletto reaches him, he brings his eyes back to the man’s face. Cesare throws his blade to the floor. Micheletto’s eyes track it, but otherwise does not react.

Dominant hand free, Cesare strikes him.

Micheletto’s head snaps to the side. He growls again before pouncing on Cesare, toppling them to the ground. Cesare had fought Micheletto once, the first time they’d met, and it was nothing like this. Micheletto all but snaps at him with his teeth, twisting and throwing pointed elbows into Cesare’s most tender organs.

“Do you forget yourself!?” Cesare shouts it between gritted teeth as he tries to struggle free from the hold Micheletto has locked him in. Again, he is granted no reply.

Never one to play fair, Cesare reaches between Micheletto’s legs, intending to use one well directed and brutal squeeze to end this once. His hand finds Micheletto. He is erect.

Micheletto lets go before Cesare can grab him properly and kicks them apart. Freed at last, Cesare springs to his feet, fearful of being taken down again. Behind his robes and beneath his tights, he knows himself to be erect as well.

 

☽

 

Cesare wakes. He does not remember settling down to sleep. He is still in all of his clothes, and Micheletto is gone.

 _Was he ever there?_ Cesare wonders, and fears that he may be losing his mind. He had wanted his dreams to take over existence, and he may have gotten his wish.

The day passes in a haze, far less clear than his dreams have been. Perhaps this is the dream, after all.

He ventures out into the woods with more meat and leaves it for the wolf, though he has not heard its howls in some time. Perhaps he dreamed the wolf too.

 

☾

 

Cesare wakes.

A wolf is beside him on the bed, mud on its snout. Cesare can see this even in the darkness because the moon’s thin light catches on it. Cesare had left the door unlocked in case Micheletto might return. The wolf’s head is level with Cesare’s in Micheletto’s bed. It is asleep, and its breath fans out hot across Cesare’s cheeks.

His voice is softened with sleep. When he speaks, it comes out a whisper. “Lonely wolf.”

The wolf wakes. It blinks lazily at Cesare but does not move.

Cesare uses the sheet to dab at the wolf’s face, soaking up the mud until the inky darkness of its coat is free of the shine of it.

“Did you follow me home?” He asks it. The silence stretches. “You won’t be offended if I name you Micheletto?”

More silence.

“I didn’t think so. No, I’d say you’d expect nothing less.”

 

☾☽

 

Cesare wakes. The wolf is no longer there. The emotions he feels over this are hard to decipher.

He washes, dresses, and leaves Micheletto’s.

Micheletto is stood beside the door. Cesare bends to pet him.

“You could have stayed the whole night,” Cesare says. “I am not so rude a bedmate to kick someone out in the morning. Not even if he is a wolf.”

Micheletto scratches at the door and Cesare opens it for him. He bounds inside and up the stairs without giving Cesare a second glance. “Wait for me to return home, if you’d be so kind,” Cesare calls up after him. “I’d love some proof that I’m not going insane.”

Cesare rushes through his duties and returns, for once, to Micheletto’s before the sun has set.

Micheletto is gone. In his place stands Micheletto.

“You let that mangy thing into my home?” Micheletto asks.

His knees weaken at the sound of Micheletto’s voice. “You’re speaking to me?”

Micheletto looks at him, confused.

Was the last time a dream? Is this time? Does Cesare care either way?

He doesn’t voice any of these questions. Instead he asks, “Where has the wolf gone?”

“He fled when I entered.”

Cesare nods. Micheletto is real, then, perhaps — to Micheletto’s eyes, at any rate.

“Has God answered you yet?”

“I have given up on God,” Micheletto says.

It fills Cesare with hope, though he has been through this with Micheletto before and still Cesare was left alone. “Does this mean you’re with me once more, your journey finished?”

Micheletto grants him a considering look. “I have found something better than God,” he says. It is not an answer to Cesare’s question. “In death, I have found it.”

Anger flares within Cesare. “Tell me what you have found then,” he spits. “Stop with these riddles and dreams, and tell me what I should do for our reunion to hold. You must know I will do it. Should I kill myself then?”

It is the unimpressed look that Micheletto gives him that has Cesare wondering — _hoping_ , against all hope — that this time it is not a dream. Even his own mind could not come up with so perfect a look, surely?

“I have always been dead, Cesare Borgia. Men like me must be, your God has seen to that. There are ways to die without dying, however.” Micheletto comes over to him as he speaks. His features seem sharper than usual. The waning light of the sun catches on the sharp points of his eye teeth.

Cesare has already struck Micheletto once, fulfilling his promise to himself, and so this time his hand snaps out to take Micheletto’s, braiding their fingers together.

He licks his lips and says, “I serve no God that would forsake you. Tell me, Micheletto, what have you found?”

“The world was not how I wanted, and so I have found a new world. Will you join me in it, your eminence?”

“Say it again,” Cesare is not one to beg, but for this, he will.

Micheletto does not have to ask what he means. “Your eminence,” he says. To Cesare’s ears, it sounds a vow.

“There are worse fates than to burn,” Cesare says, senselessly, as he can think of nothing else. The sun is setting, and Cesare feels that he must say this now, before the moon may rise.

Micheletto understands, it is clear in his eyes. He takes hold of Cesare and brings their bodies together, their mouths together, and when they kiss, it is not unlike a bite.

**Author's Note:**

> happy Halloween, dear recip ♥ has micheletto become a werewolf or has cesare learned to love the madness? your choice!


End file.
